A fistful of salt

Sir, - ``A fistful of salt'' by Ms. Devaki Jain (TheHindu, Aug.
11) brilliantly points out the real significance of the Narmada
Valley struggle. It is a fact that a large proportion of our
population fails to understand the language and meaning of
popular movements. The struggle in the valley is not a movement,
led by some environmentalists or by urban `elite' as alleged by
Ms. Omvedt (TheHindu, Aug. 4 and 5), or by other critics. Years
before the so-called people stepped on the soil of the Narmada
Valley, women from the villages travelled to the capital of our
country with their feeble voice and strong determination to
assert their rights over the land and life. Ms. Medha Patkar was
with them not as their leader but as one among them. Time and she
have clarified that the struggle embodies not just the question
of one river, one dam or a specific group of people, but it is a
war against several forces that slowly strangle the mind and
lives of the people of our country. The sad thing is that the
vast majority of us are totally unaware of the ramifications of
the current events and their future implications. Be it the bomb
or the Monsanto seeds or the patent laws, without deep reflection
or efforts to understand the writing on the wall, we come out
with support to the destructive processes of the ``industrial
version of development'' as a ``necessary and inevitable agent of
social change.''

If the country cannot rely on the facts and figures brought to
light by the NBA or the report of the five-member group
constituted by the Government of India in 1993, the apex court
can independently probe the matter utilising the expertise of any
number of competent persons. Years ago, the World Bank had done
exactly the same in appointing a team to conduct an independent
review of the project. In their letter to the then President of
the World Bank, the team members had stated, ``We have travelled
throughout the Narmada Valley, to villages and relocation sites,
the upstream area, the command area and the downstream. We also
visited Kutch and other drought-prone areas of Gujarat... and
have come to the conclusion that the Sardar Sarovar Projects, as
they stand, are flawed and the resettlement and rehabilitation of
all those displaced by the projects are not possible under the
prevailing conditions. As Ms. Devaki Jain has rightly pointed
out, if the struggle in the hamlets of the Narmada Valley dies
out, it will be the forerunner of the death of democracy and the
process of negotiations of justice through public action. The
struggle has to go on. We have to keep it alive at least for the
sake of our sweet dream of a just society.